Tombmuffins
by Patrick Phelan
Summary: Zell and Irvine don't get along. (A fair bit of SquallZell in this one, so consider yourself warned.)


Irvine was smiling. Squall wasn't.  
  
In the few moments Zell wasn't dedicating to punching the air and hating Irvine with a passion, he reflected that most of the trip since Galbadia Garden could be described that way. Irvine had split the party into two groups, and had placed himself with Selphie and Rinoa, and Squall hadn't complained, and the girls had shouted at him: Irvine smiled, Squall didn't. They'd been given a mission to some bizarre Tomb in an area that Irvine knew and the other SeeDs were completely lost in: Irvine smiled, Squall didn't. Zell had been hit by some monster's attack that turned everything into a spiral of colours and strange sounds, and 'woke up' a few seconds later to find out that he'd broken Squall's nose with a particularly good punch: Irvine _goddamn Galbadian idiot_ smiled, Squall didn't.  
  
Now it was about the muffins.  
  
Irvine was leaning against a wall, holding a particularly tasty-looking chocolate muffin up towards Squall, and - of course - smiling. Squall was standing in front of him, staring at the offending baked good, and - of course - not.  
  
"I assume you bought those in Deling City?" Squall asked.  
  
"Not many other places to buy muffins around here, are there?" Irvine said.  
  
"Our free time in Deling was set aside so that the Balamb SeeDs could familiarise themselves with the city..."  
  
"Which I'm already pretty familiar with, so I did a little shopping."  
  
Squall didn't miss a beat. "...Not to spend our supply money on indulgences."  
  
"It wasn't _your_ supply money, Mr. Leader. It was _my_ money, which I chose to spend on muffins. Which I am now, out of the goodness of my heart, offering to you. You don't want one?"  
  
Squall looked from the muffin to Irvine's face, and back to the muffin again. Then he shrugged, and said, "Whatever."  
  
"Could have told you he'd say that," Irvine said to Zell with a wink - _a **wink!** Like we're **friends** or something! Asshole._ - as Squall took the muffin.  
  
_Typical of him that he doesn't offer me one._  
  
"Want one?" Irvine asked, holding up a muffin.  
  
Zell shifted mental gears quickly. _Typical of him to try to buy me off with muffins._  
  
Taking silence for assent, Irvine threw the muffin in a lightly curving arc to Zell. Zell grabbed it out of the air, martial-artist reflexes intercepting it perfectly. Irvine made a faux-wince, and Zell had a moment to think, _Yeah, well, better than you could do, gun-boy,_ before he realised that he was still wearing his fighting gloves and the muffin was half-crushed in his grip. A small, sad portion of the crisp top broke away from the muffin and fell into a pool of stagnant water on the ground.  
  
"Not a good idea to catch with those gloves," said Irvine, half-laughing. _Overinflated cowboy poseur_. "Want another one? I've got a few."  
  
Zell stuffed a quarter of the broken muffin into his mouth and scowled at Irvine.  
  
Irvine laughed again, as if Zell had told a particularly good one about the Trabian, the Galbadian, and the FHer who walk into a bar. "Well," he said, swinging the bag of muffins over his shoulder, "I'm going to go see if there's any hint of that GF the guard said was in here."  
  
Zell paused in his frantic chewing for a moment, and realised something with a hint of chagrin - the muffin was really rather good. _Typical of him to buy expensive muffins when we're on a mission_, he thought to himself, ignoring the fact that his spite made no sense whatsoever.  
  
"Don't get lost," Squall snapped.  
  
Irvine held up the location indicator. "Not gonna." He turned, and walked away.  
  
_Typical of him to take our **only** location..._  
  
"Zell?"  
  
Zell looked up at Squall, who stood holding his muffin in his hand, examining Zell in the considering manner he seemed to have perfected over the years. "Yeah?" Zell said, guardedly.  
  
"You're not acting like yourself. Something the matter?"  
  
_Wait. Squall's taking an interest? **Squall's** taking an **interest?**_ "Nothing." Zell shook his head, and stuffed his mouth full of muffin again.  
  
Squall bit off a section of his own muffin, and Zell found himself watching, interested without reason. A flash of even, white teeth, and a tiny section of muffin gone. Squall ate the same way he did everything else: careful, precise, always acting with the least wasted effort possible. Zell knew that from watching him at meals of iron rations on the road, but somehow he'd never considered how Squall would eat a muffin. It was almost ridiculous.  
  
Squall swallowed carefully before speaking. "You don't trust him."  
  
"He's full of himself and he doesn't take anything seriously and he flirts with _all_ the girls and he dresses stupidly and he's an _asshole_!" _Wait, how loud was that? Sound carries too well in this stupid tomb._  
  
"He's important to the mission. We'd better get used to it."  
  
In normal circumstances, Zell would have growled, and very possibly punched something. But it was surprising, and almost flattering, that Squall had judged his problem so well - Zell was hardly the most difficult person to read, but Squall didn't seem the kind to pick up easily on other people's feelings. And Squall hadn't tried to defend Irvine or villify him, hadn't tried to identify with Zell or talk him into "getting along". He hadn't _pretended_ anything, just spoken the truth of the matter. As if Zell was... not his friend, not quite, but his _equal_.  
  
From the man who tried his hardest to act like rest of humanity didn't exist, that was a compliment better than a hundred half-discarded muffins.  
  
"Reckon there really is a GF in here?" Zell asked. His voice echoed in a way he didn't like. Zell thought he'd take on any human in the world, or any monster, with never a thought of backing down... but demi-god figures as old as Time who lived in your brain and made your dreams all weird were not Zell's chosen enemy. He wondered how he really felt about having them as _allies_.  
  
Squall shrugged. "I can't say. But rumours typically have a basis in fact, and the cadets at the door were running away from something. Maybe a monster lives within the tomb and has been confused with a GF. It wouldn't be the first time."  
  
"Or maybe the monster _is_ a GF. Right?"  
  
"We can hope so."  
  
Squall took another careful bite of muffin. "If there is one, we should probably give it to _him_. Selphie's complaining about having to share Siren." Secretly, Zell hoped that there was a GF, and it was a chocobo with a missing wing.  
  
Squall nodded assent, and Zell noticed that there was a muffin crumb left on his lower lip. He wondered whether to tell Squall about it. Or flick it off with a finger. The latter was probably the better option. Or - hey, muffin crumbs are meant for eating, and if he flicked it off with a finger it might fall into one of the pools of bad water and _that'd_ be a waste, maybe he should just step forward, reach up, and pluck it off Squall's lips with his own...  
  
"Hey!"  
  
Behind Squall, Irvine appeared from a corridor Zell hadn't noticed, waving a hand above his head.  
  
"What?" Zell called out, irritated.  
  
Squall turned around, but didn't say anything.  
  
"I need more Fire spells. There's more Blobras out here than needles on a Cactuar."  
  
_Typical of him to waste all our Fire spells,_ Zell brooded.  
  
"Any hints of the GF?" Squall asked.  
  
"I don't know. There's a big statue thing over there, I Scanned it, and there's _huge_ magic in it. But, hey, could have just been an Ultima draw point that the Unknown King built a statue around, and by now it's turned into Stones..."  
  
"Any magic's worth checking out," Squall said, pulling out his gunblade. "Whether it's a GF or Ultima Stones, it's useful to us." He turned to walk towards Irvine.  
  
"Squall!" Zell said.  
  
Squall turned around. "Yeah?"  
  
Zell flicked at his own lips with a heavy leather fingertip. "You've got a crumb here."  
  
Squall reached up one hand - Zell thought to himself that, weirdly, he could almost count the callouses on it even from this distance - and flicked the crumb away. "Got it?"  
  
Zell nodded.  
  
Squall didn't smile... but behind him, looking at Zell knowingly, Irvine did.  
  


end

  
**Author's Notes and Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the above characters, their situation, their muffins, or _Final Fantasy VIII_, and make no claims to any of them.  
  
...Yeah, it's a strange situation for a fanfic. But it was for a Trapezoidal Challenge. The prompt was "Write any sort of scene you want, so long as it involves **The Tomb of the Unknown King** and **muffins**", so I wrote this. 


End file.
